Replace vSphere, vCenter, vSAN, NSX, and the rest of VCF with one Kubernetes-native platform on your own bare metal — no per-CPU licensing, no Broadcom renewal cliff, no US-vendor lock-in.
Cozystack is a CNCF project. Ænix builds it, operates it in production with hosting providers and banks, and runs the migration end-to-end.
Pairs with: Ænix Public Cloud Platform for anyone selling cloud — hosting providers exiting VMware Cloud Director, MSPs, telcos, national operators; Ænix Private Cloud Platform for regulated enterprises exiting VMware Cloud Foundation. Free VMware Migration Checklist →.
Where Cozystack fits in the VMware-alternative market
| Vendor | Stack model | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Cozystack | Open-source, Kubernetes-native, multi-tenant | Service providers, regulated enterprises, sovereign cloud |
| Nutanix AHV | Proprietary HCI on certified nodes | VM-centric enterprise estates wanting one vendor |
| Proxmox VE | Open-source KVM/LXC | SMB and labs |
| Scale Computing HC3 | Appliance HCI | ROBO/edge |
| OpenShift Virtualization | KubeVirt + OpenShift licensing | Existing Red Hat customers |
| OpenStack | Mature open-source IaaS | Teams with dedicated platform engineering |
| Azure Local (formerly Azure Stack HCI) | Microsoft-licensed Hyper-V, Arc-managed | Microsoft-aligned shops |
For a head-to-head listicle: VMware alternatives 2026.
Why teams replace VMware in 2026
1. Subscription-only economics, post-Broadcom Perpetual licenses retired, mandatory VCF bundling, renewals subscription-only.
2. Stack-wide vendor lock-in vSphere, NSX, vSAN, vCD, Aria — replacing one means rebuilding the rest.
3. Sovereignty and regulator pressure DORA, NIS2, and on-prem mandates make a closed US hypervisor a documented operational risk.
4. Open-source velocity has overtaken VMware’s roadmap KubeVirt, Cilium, LINSTOR, and Flux ship faster as community projects than Broadcom can match in the open.
What Cozystack gives you instead
- Virtual machines — KubeVirt, KVM-based, live migration, snapshots
- Tenant Kubernetes — every tenant gets their own real K8s cluster
- Managed databases — PostgreSQL, MariaDB, Redis, RabbitMQ, Kafka, ClickHouse, OpenSearch, MongoDB
- S3-compatible object storage — for backups, AI training data, applications
- GPU as a service — NVIDIA vGPU for VMs; NVIDIA GPU Operator with HAMi for sharing a card across container workloads
- Multi-tenant control plane — Tenant CRD, nested tenants, per-tenant quotas
- Observability — VictoriaMetrics + VictoriaLogs (no Prometheus/Loki licensing trap)
- Backup & DR — Velero + S3 + per-database PITR
- Self-service portal & WHMCS billing — production-ready, two integration modes
Runs on your bare metal — no public-cloud dependency.
Where VMware is still the better choice
A comparison that only lists our wins is a battle card, not an evaluation. These are the places VMware is genuinely ahead, and they are the ones your architects will raise:
- Operational depth. DRS and Storage DRS, Fault Tolerance, Storage vMotion between arrays, vVols, EVC. KubeVirt live-migrates VMs and schedules them well; it does not match twenty years of automated placement and rebalancing behaviour.
- A certified hardware compatibility list. VMware qualifies servers, HBAs, NICs and firmware levels, and supports you on a listed configuration. Cozystack runs on commodity hardware, which means that qualification becomes yours.
- The backup and DR ecosystem. Veeam, Commvault, Rubrik, Zerto and Site Recovery Manager speak VADP natively. Velero plus per-database PITR reaches the same outcomes with different tools, and every runbook, retention policy and piece of audit evidence built on the VMware ecosystem gets rewritten.
- ISV certification. Some application vendors certify only against ESXi and will decline a support call about the same workload on KubeVirt, whatever the technical merits.
- Windows guests with hard edges. VMs using Measured Boot do not convert, and Windows Server 2012 and 2012 R2 do not boot after conversion. Those are rebuilds, not migrations — see the VMware migration hub.
If your renewal is tolerable, your team is deep on vSphere, and no sovereignty or multi-tenancy requirement is pushing, staying is the right call and we will say so on the review.
VMware → Cozystack: one-to-one component mapping
| VMware / VCF | Cozystack equivalent |
|---|---|
| vSphere / ESXi | KubeVirt on Talos |
| vCenter | Kubernetes API + Cozystack Dashboard |
| vSAN | LINSTOR or SeaweedFS |
| NSX | Cilium (eBPF) |
| vCloud Director | Tenant CRD + Cozystack Dashboard |
| vRealize / Aria Operations | VictoriaMetrics + VictoriaLogs + Grafana |
| Site Recovery Manager | Velero + S3 + PostgreSQL PITR |
| Tanzu Kubernetes Grid | Tenant Kubernetes (native) |
| vRealize Automation | ApplicationDefinition + portal catalog |
| VMware Cloud Foundation | Cozystack |
Two layers need redesign rather than 1:1 mapping: networking (Cilium ≠ NSX) and multi-tenancy (Tenant CRD ≠ vCD orgs). Both are addressed in the architecture review.
Migration path — six steps
Discover
vSphere/VCF inventory, dependencies, workload buckets.
Deploy in parallel
Cozystack on new or repurposed hardware.
Migrate VMs
Konveyor Forklift drives virt-v2v and CDI; VirtIO injection and VMware Tools removal are automated.
Cut over networking and storage
Cilium policy parity, LINSTOR (DRBD) import.
Validate and cut over DR
Velero playbook replaces SRM.
Decommission VMware
Repurpose hardware as licenses lapse.
OpenStack, CloudStack, and Proxmox migrations follow the same playbook with different image-import and network-mapping steps.
Multi-tenancy and sovereignty
- Tenant CRD — each tenant is a Kubernetes-native isolation boundary, with quotas, RBAC, billing scope, and observability scope
- Nested tenants — for resellers and BU separation
- Air-gapped install — supported, documented, no extra licensing
- No phone-home telemetry — opt-in, disabled by default
- DORA / NIS2-aligned controls — operational resilience, supplier-risk transparency
- No-kubectl support model — Ænix advisory + GitOps PR review; we don’t need access to your production environment
Cozystack vs VMware — at a glance
| VMware (VCF, post-Broadcom) | Cozystack + Ænix | |
|---|---|---|
| License model | Subscription only (VCF bundles) | Apache 2.0 + optional Ænix support tier |
| Renewal risk | 2–5× increases seen in Ænix engagements | Predictable; OSS code remains usable regardless |
| Compute | vSphere / ESXi | KubeVirt (KVM-based) |
| Storage | vSAN | LINSTOR/DRBD (block), SeaweedFS (object) |
| Network | NSX | Cilium (eBPF, CNCF Graduated) |
| Multi-tenancy | vCloud Director | Tenant CRD (Kubernetes-native) |
| Backup / DR | Site Recovery Manager | Velero + S3 + PostgreSQL PITR |
| Observability | vRealize / Aria (separate license) | VictoriaMetrics + VictoriaLogs (included) |
| GPU for VMs | NVIDIA vGPU on vSphere | NVIDIA vGPU + KubeVirt |
| Sovereignty | Closed source, US vendor | Open source, on-prem, EU support team |
| Air-gap install | Supported (extra licensing) | Supported (no extra cost) |
| Pricing transparency | Quote-driven, non-public | Public on aenix.io/pricing; OSS is free |
Running in production with
"Running Nuvolos on sovereign bare metal meant we needed hyperscaler-grade multi-tenancy without the hyperscaler. Cozystack delivered exactly that — isolated tenants, shared GPUs, KubeVirt for legacy workloads — and it's why we can promise our customers infrastructure control, not just a workspace."
Alexandru PopescuCEO, Nuvolos
Providers running Ænix Platform in production include GoHost.kz, HDReady, Beby Cloud, HiKube, UseTech, Cloupard and Cloudsy. Named references and customer quotes are shared on the discovery call, where permissions allow.
Service providers, telecom operators, regional sovereign clouds, GPU/AI operators, regulated enterprises across the EU and North America.
Pricing
The Cozystack platform is open source and free to run. Ænix support tiers are published per 10 physical nodes per month: Basic $1,250, Standard $3,000, Plus $5,500, Enterprise per RFP. Professional services — migration assessment, build, training — are scoped separately. Full breakdown on the pricing page.
No per-CPU, per-VM, or per-core meter. Your spend is hardware plus an Ænix engagement.
More questions about Windows VMs, vCD migration, hardware reuse, GPU support, and migration timelines: see the full VMware replacement guide on our blog or talk to us.
Three ways to start
Architecture review (60 min) Free. Your stack against Cozystack mapping, written assessment with workload buckets and risk flags.
Migration assessment (paid) Deeper inventory, 4-6 week engagement, full migration plan with timeline, budget, and success criteria.
Production pilot Run a workload cohort on Cozystack hardware we provision, parallel to your VMware estate, validated against your application owners.
Or read the full VMware replacement guide on our blog · See the VMware migration path · Compare to the broader market in VMware alternatives 2026.
Cozystack is a CNCF Project. Kubernetes Certified Distribution. OpenSSF Best Practices. Ænix is the company behind Cozystack.